The Man of Twists and Turns
by Archea
Summary: The Great Hiatus retold as a modern-day version of the Odyssey, featuring Sherlock as Ulysses and John as Penelope. The rest of the crew volunteered happily enough. S/J slash.


**Disclaimer** : Sherlock belongs to MM. Conan Doyle, Moffat, Gatiss, etc – in his case I'd advise collective babysitting.

**A/N** : Title borrowed from Robert Fagles' beautiful Penguin translation, though it should really be the Man of Twirls and Turns.

**The Man of Twists and Turns**

The sound of rock-ripping water will be his tune in the next thirty months. He, who never selected one for his phone (_childish), _will hear it constantly - the indefatigable rumble, sealing the dead man's cry and his own survival.

It mingles with the night train's roar as he crosses from Switzerland to Serbia under the nondescript name Anthea swiftly provided for him. He is Nobody now_ (if they find no body, will you), _and as he gazes at the endless fields of wheat, ashen blond under the moon, he feels something stir in his chest, hunger-like.

* * *

><p>The hunger subsists as he sits before the Golem in an underground Army bunker, unrecognizable, pouring out rose-red wine and enticing Cyrillic syllables. Looking up at the giant, he remembers the Jewish legend he once told John near a river <em>(roaring roaring are you furious at me). <em>Then, as now, he never told John how the story ended, leaving a gap unfilled, unresolved.

When the Golem raises his glass, Sherlock raises John's gun and places one round hole in the center of the creature's forehead.

Then he commits the names he was given to memory and retraces his steps to Austria. So many names. So many orphan tales_ (do you update your blog). _Anthea texts him instructions, and another train takes him to Vienna where the first name is waiting for him. Perhaps there will be a story for him to tell John in the end. Perhaps not.

_[A/N: in the original legend, the Golem is destroyed when his creator erases the first letter of the name written on his forehead.]_

* * *

><p>This woman is a hybrid. Boyish, wanton; a two-legged sleek cat; cockney Venus to a King, so they say, and her voice moves the angels in your loins, it will give your soul a hard-on. In her lodge at the Vienna National Opera, he shows her the photograph and she does what any cat does when you point out an object for her. She looks at him steadily.<p>

"This one", he says, pointing at the Bohemian photograph, "hurt you, Miss Adler. I am in a position to hurt him."

She looks at him and hums,_ Red sky at night, such a sailor's delight... Red sky at dawn, oh gypsy song's comin' on... _. He knows these exact strings, the soft taut stir they give when his bow leans into them_ (did you sell), _and he swallows a pang before leaning forward, pressing a finger on her bow-like mouth.

Holding up the photograph between them until she gives him the address.

She doesn't ask to keep the photograph. He doesn't tell her about the metal vat and the acid solution that will strip the man of his third dimension. They are headed already, each to their world of shadows.

* * *

><p>And so the trains, and the men, in a journey that keeps doubling up on itself, year in year out, until a plane roars him over the sea the sea, his eyes straining to catch hold of his native island. He texts Mycroft wryly (<em>Nobody's home<em>), his finger itching over the question mark.

Anthea takes him directly to the Morgue, where an oblivious Molly shows them the last four bodies. Each dead man has a tale to tell and Sherlock gathers the last clues feverishly. He has been undercover too long; he wants to feel the sun go round him again; he wants to be on fire; and, more than anything else, he wants someone to speak his name. He sets Moran's arm, empty now, back along the man's chest and steps out into the waiting car.

"Sherlock" says Mycroft and he is being enfolded in his next of kin's hug, solid, unmovable, grounding him home at last.

"Endgame", he answers, and steals a glance at the car window. Gaunt, stubbled, red-rimmed - no wonder Molly kept the autopsy table between them. But Mycroft is already babbling about a designer's bathroom, an Oxford suit, a three course meal and an Embassy nicotine patch.

"And then, my dear boy?"

But he never answered Sherlock's text. Sherlock presses his forehead against the car window, a magic lantern of sights and sounds, struggling to take in as many as he can. Mycroft is home; London is home; why should home be anything else than familiar?

"Scotland Yard, of course", he says curtly.

* * *

><p>Lestrade is every bit as blunt and boisterous as could be expected. Sherlock finds it unexpectedly comforting.<p>

"Now don't look at the mess - this place has turned into a regular pigsty in your absence. Ovework. I'm back to fags and Anderson's taken to hard-boiled mints. Are you sure this Moriarty of yours is gone? Alleluiah and all that, but unexplained homicide is still Gift of the Month. Four of them yesterday and -"

But Sherlock is gazing at the office board. Lists, schedules, press cuttings, and, in the upper right corner, a photograph with a quaint splash of orange.

"Did you think we'd forgotten you?" Lestrade asks quietly and, before Sherlock can think of an answer, "Did you think _any_ of us had forgotten?"

Sherlock steps forward to the board and unpins the photograph.

"He's home and waiting. Probably checking on that blog of his. Ever since he made up his mind to post on Reichenbach, he's had a dozen offers a day. Flatshares, flatmates, whatnot." Lestrade spins on his heel and opens his office door wide. "A Baker's dozen, so we keep telling him. Off with you, lad. You know what they say about number thirteen."

* * *

><p>He lets Mrs Hudson embrace him, both of them aware of her hand splayed on the old, old scar - her husband's parting gift to the youth who hunted him to his death.<p>

Touch stretches out to its fellow senses - the faint smell of damp and oak polish, the reds and yellows of the stained window, Mrs Hudson's soft wail in his ear. In a few seconds, he will wonder what caused the dent in the wallpaper and for whom his landlady has perfumed her earlobes. In a few seconds, he'll be jolting up the stairs.

Right now, she is embracing him and that is the long and short of wonder.

* * *

><p>He can hear the steps behind the door, and he knows he's burning when he can hear John's breath before the door opens.<p>

There are three more lines grazing John's forehead, one slantwise, and his temples have gone from ashen blond to sandy grey - but it's John, John in the flesh, the whole John and nothing but his John.

"Do come in", his John is saying politely. "I'm so happy to see you again, Sherlock. Your brother texted that you were on your way."

Sherlock, entirely nonplussed, steps into the flat. As far as he can tell, this _is_ the flat he left three years ago, warts and all, up to the unmistakable laptop displayed on the table. He's more dubious about the flatmate.

"Ah yes, your laptop. Mycroft let me keep it, said you'd certainly deleted anything of public importance. I, erm, did try to research it. In case you'd have, you know, left me a clue. I'm afraid I never managed to crack your password. A bit shaming, really, but there you are."

Sherlock stares hard at the mild blue eyes. Perhaps he should have had that three course meal after all - he is feeling more than a bit dizzy. "How could you not crack the password?" he snaps. "That's impossible. You chose it for me, that night before we left. The night we - I wanted you to chose it." The dizziness reaches his eyes and he shuts them, holding to the table and his memories. "The password was - is – 'let_him_live'."

The slap jolts his eyes open. "You!" John is roaring in a most im-polite manner. "You, you, _ah_, you son of a bitch, it's really you... " and before Sherlock can vindicate Mummy, John is slamming into him with three years' compacted rage and the table corner is giving Sherlock's loins a stern reminder of its angular nature.

"Me", Sherlock gasps just before John's hand clamps down on his neck. His homecoming kiss is hard and slow, an open invitation to flesh and spirit, and it leaves Sherlock expatiating in a slightly dazed voice, "Me too, John. Me too."

"You too, yes" John echoes. "You damnable, movable, uncontrollable git. Always you." He twines his arms around Sherlock's waist and marches them to the couch. "You have a whale of a tale to tell me, you. Better be frank about it if you don't want to kiss your flatshare goodbye."

This rings a sudden bell in Sherlock's short-term memory.

"Where's your laptop?" he asks, twisting himself around and out of John's arm.

John looks as if about to add "incurable" to his list. "In the kitchen. Why?"

Sherlock runs a bee-line to the kitchen and switches on John's laptop, logging himself onto his blog. Lestrade, predictably, was way off the mark. There are _fifty_ comments on John's last entry, all of them embroideries on the "Come-and-live-with-me" thread. Sherlock spares them one withering look and deletes the lot.

"There" he says with a huff of satisfaction. "You've spent quite enough time on the Web."

John opens his mouth in protest, but Sherlock knows better than to engage in a little domestic after a three years' leave. Instead, he drags them back to the couch, pins John's hands to his side and puts his own mouth to its _other_ clever use.

Tales can wait. Apologies can wait. But this is peace, and this cannot, will not wait.

_[Cast credits in order of appearance : Anthea/Athena, the Golem/Polyphemus, Irene Adler/the Sirens, St Barts' Morgue/The Underworld, Mycroft/a brotherly Telemachus, Lestrade/Eumaeus (Ulysses's loyal swineherd) and Mrs Hudson Eurycleia (his faithful housekeeper). I'd intended Mummy to be Calypso, but my Oedipus kink is apparently on the wane.]_


End file.
